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Blew Out Another Tyre...

I think there is something not right in my relationship with my car. Not just the hatchback I'm driving now but also the sedan I used to drive. I seem to be having accidents galore...

This time, I nodded off at the wheel and hit the sharp base of the small Putatan bridge just after the traffic lights. Luckily I have steady hands and I kept the car moving. Owwwch, the beautiful melody of the slap grind rip of rubber and steel rim on the road... every note symbolised a chunk of ringgit leaping out of my wallet. Worse, I was on the fast lane and a few hundred metres AFTER the curve. So while waiting for the tow truck, one car managed to rear-end another. I was waiting at the nearby bus stop (the sight of the trucks barreling towards my tiny auto made me scramble out to seek refuge elsewhere) and tried to hide behind a sapling while the two car owners battled it out.

But I realised something good. There are plenty of kind people out there on Malaysia's demolition derby highways. One man stopped at the bus stop to tear off a leafy branch so that he could put in on the road a few hundred metres from my car. He wanted to warn other motorists. It was only as he was leaving that he saw me. I made sure to thank him. And two other drivers stopped to offer to change my tyre for me. Change a tyre in the middle of the fast lane??? Bad bad bad idea. I was not having a good samaritan's life on my conscience.

So today I have no car to use and am waiting for the workshop guys to call me up. Probably to ask me when I can mortgage my house so that I can pay them... sigh... double sigh.

Double worse, a colleague took off without telling me and we had something to plan together. Basket. More baskets. (No swearing during Lent.)

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